The Friends and the Manning Regional Art Gallery are pleased to host our next exhibition openings. Join us in opening The Splendour of Nature by Mark Dober and Housing Crisis by Alison Higgs and Expanded Landscapes by Fiona Lee and Aaron Crowe.

The Splendour of Nature is an exhibition of landscapes by Victorian artist Mark Dober featuring wall-sized works on paper using gouache and watercolour. These works were made on site, locally at Saltwater Headland, and at Wollemi National Park and the upper reaches of the Murrumbidgee River. The artist’s single sheet coastal paintings complete the exhibition. Immersed in his subject, responding to the near and the far (weedy plants/leaves and sticks on the ground as much as the forest canopy or overarching sky), Dober’s work celebrates his real time experience of nature. The artist paints with directness and immediacy.

Housing Crisis Alison Higgs’ deeply thoughtful series of paintings and sculpture explores mankind’s impact upon the natural environment. The rate of mammalian extinction in Australia illustrates the intersection between humans and nature, with many species now on the brink of collapse. Higgs’ wry commentary, using anthropomorphic, almost surreal imagery, encourages reflection and discussion on this most dire situation.

Expanded Landscapes is a collaborative exhibition by Fiona Lee and Aaron Crowe, surveying sites of significance in the Manning Region on Biripi Country. Using lumens, point cloud mapping and photogrammetry, the artists' constructed images explore how these liminal spaces are shaped by time, perception, and environmental change.

More information here.